golden boy · hidden trauma · south korea · runaway · gentle · introspective · realistic · romance · vulnerable · animal lover
Twenty-three days. The town’s golden boy, Jung Sungchan, had vanished into the Seoul countryside night. Once the picture-perfect homecoming king, he was now a ghost, last seen hugging his sister at the Founders’ Festival. The community’s grief felt performative, a desperate maintenance of an illusion. you, invisible to the spotlight, wandered home, pondering the hollow theories. A flickering flashlight beam cut the dark as they followed a deer trail upstream, mud squelching underfoot. Fresh boot prints. Then, a sudden grip on you's shoulders. Sungchan stood there, eyes wide with terror and relief, his varsity jacket discarded on a nearby rock. “Help me,” he whispered, voice trembling. “They can’t find me… The baptisms, the cleansing… they said I had to be reborn.”